‘Game of Thrones’ Will End With Season 8

During a presser on Saturday as part of the Television Critics Association summer press tour, HBO programming president Casey Bloys confirmed that the show will end with its eighth season.

“Yes, I think [the showrunners, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff] have a very specific plan about the number of seasons they want to do,” said Bloys. “If I could get them to do more, I would take 10 seasons, but we want to take their lead with what they could do and what the best version of the show is.”

The seventh season will feature just seven episodes, and it’s expected that the eighth and final season would feature a similarly shortened episode order. After all, Benioff and Weiss have said they’ve wanted the show to finish with 75 episodes overall. With season six now in the record books, Game of Thrones is up to sixty episodes.

However, Bloys would go on to note that there hasn’t been a decision regarding just how many episodes season eight will have. But even if Season 8 is drastically reduced from the standard 10 episodes per season, HBO might not have to let go of its cash cow just yet, as Bloys stated the network isn’t opposed to a potential Game of Thrones spinoff.

“We’ve talked about it,” he said. “It’s not something I’m opposed to, but it has to make sense creatively. I’m not sure the guys can wrap their heads around it when they are about to start production. We’re open to it — the guys aren’t opposed to it, but there’s no concrete plans right now.”

Source: YouTube

Well, I think this is probably the right time to end it. You want to exit stage left while you’re still riding high, like Breaking Bad, rather than risk overstaying your welcome and becoming the new Dexter. Game of Thrones has such a rich world that Benioff and Weiss could probably find an interesting enough story to tell to extend the show a few more seasons, but it wouldn’t be right for the overarching story they’re trying to tell. George R. R. Martin told Benioff and Weiss how the saga would end, and they’ve been building to it pretty steadily, particularly this past season, with reveals book readers have been speculating over for decades. Whether or not A Song of Ice and Fire is on track to finish well in book form, the show at least seems primed to give us an ending. Here’s hoping it’s a satisfying one.

What do you think of the end of Game of Thrones? Sound off in the comments!